sometimes a legal fiction. The adjutant system in the army works better than the assistant to system on the railroads, because the adjutant is relatively better trained for his position. Not only does the adjutant know office work, but he has learned practically to perform every duty required of non-commissioned officers and private soldiers. Very few assistants to could run a train, switch cars, handle a locomotive, or pick up a wreck. This is why soldiers and sailors have more faith in the ability of their officers than railway employes have in that of their officials. He who would be called Thor must first wield Thor's battle axe. We should office from the railroad rather than railroad from the office.

Since these things are so, as runs the old Latin phrase, I would recruit my office assistant from the road, from the head of a so-called department, from an official who has gained a face-to-face experience in handling men. The old chief clerk is the first man I would consider for appointment as one of my junior assistants. I would so assign him that he would get outside experience. Sunburn and redness of blood sometimes go together. For the pink tea contact of the telephone, for the absent treatment of the typewriter, I would ask him for a while to substitute the strong coffee of the caboose and the surprise test of the through freight. Office railroading has its origin in the mistaken theory of overspecialization, that office work is a highly-segregated specialty beyond the ken of the average man. The world advances, and as education becomes more general, as tenure is made more permanent, and employment more attractive, we can impose increased requirements. Suppose that it all could be so worked out that a generation hence no man would expect to be a railroad clerk until he had served some such outside apprenticeship as trackman, brakeman, switchman, or fireman, etc. This would mean that in an organization like the post office department every clerk in the department in Washington would have been graduated from some such outside position as letter carrier, railway mail clerk, country postmaster, rural free delivery carrier, etc. Every clerk in the war department would be a soldier and every clerk in the navy department a sailor. Then the papers that the clerk handled would have a living meaning for him. His action would be more intelligent. Pardon me a moment while I shake hands with the highly-conventional gentleman who is approaching—Mr. Cant B. Dunn. No introduction is necessary. We have met all over the United States, in Canada and in Mexico. We usually differ, but never quarrel, because each is so necessary to the other.

Sure, my boy, all these things can't be done right away quick, or before the Interstate Commerce Commission again asks for increased authority and larger appropriations. I do not expect to live to see the consummation, but hope that you may. I do expect to survive long enough to see a good start made along such rational lines of elasticity. Because we cannot accomplish it all at once is no reason for not making an intelligent beginning. If a compromise with principle is ever advanced its advocates should be prepared to pay the ultimate cost. Those questions on which the Federal Constitution compromised required the expensive settlement of civil war. Otherwise the Constitution has been elastic enough to cover nearly fifty states as fully as the original thirteen. It is even strong enough to withstand the latest political fallacy, the recall of the judiciary, as solemnly proposed out here in fascinating Arizona.

Remember always, my boy, that although the good old days have completed their runs, there are better days arriving and still on the road; that from beyond the terminal at the vanishing point of the perspective the best days are coming special because no railway time-table is big enough to give them running rights.

Affectionately, your own,

D. A. D.